VATICAN (CWNews.com) -- At his regular weekly public audience on
Wednesday, May 3, Pope John Paul II cited the words of St. Edith
Stein as he spoke on "the glory of the Trinity in the Passion."

On the Cross, the Holy Father said, Jesus "fully offered his anguished
human being to the action of the Holy Spirit, which gave him the
power he needed to make his death a perfect offering to his Father."

The Pope then recalled the words of St. Edith Stein, the Jewish
convert and Carmelite nun who died at Auschwitz in 1942 and was
canonized in 1998. "We cannot count on human action alone, but we
can count on the Passion of Christ," she wrote. She added that she
wished to unite herself with the sacrifice of the Cross, and toward
that end she wrote: "I now accept, with my full will, whatever death
God has destined for me. Lord, accept my life and my death, for the
intentions of the Church, and the increase of your glory."

The Pope concluded his catechetical talk by observing that Christians
must live with the reality of the Cross, but also with the joy of the
Resurrection. He urged the pilgrims who had assembled to hear him,
"welcome the presence of the Resurrection ever more deeply into
your lives, and bear witness to it generously with others."